General view on Figures of Speech

A figure does not necessarily involve any alteration either of the order or the strict sense of words. A figure of speech, sometimes termed a rhetorical, or elocution, is a word or phrase that departs from straightforward, literal language. The term is used in two senses. In the first it is applied to any form in which thought is expressed, just as it is to bodies which, whatever their composition, must have some shape. In the second and special sense, in which it is called a schema, it means a rational change in meaning or language from the ordinary and simple form, that is to say, a change analogous to that involved by sitting, lying down on something or looking back. Figures of speech are often used and crafted for emphasis, freshness of expression, or clarity. However, clarity may also suffer from their use.

As an example of the figurative use of a word, consider the sentence, I am going to crown you. It may mean:

I am going to place a literal crown on your head.

I am going to symbolically exalt you to the place of kingship.

I am going to punch you in the head with my clenched fist.

I am going to put a second draught piece on top of your draught piece to signify that it has become a king (as in the game of draughts/checkers).

Scholars of classical Western rhetoric have divided figures of speech into two main categories: schemes and tropes.

Schemes (from the Greek schēma, form or shape) are figures of speech in which there is a deviation from the ordinary or expected pattern of words. For example, the phrase, "John, my best friend" uses the scheme known as apposition. For example,

alliteration: A series of words that begin with the same letter or sound alike

anadiplosis: Repetition of a word at the end of a clause at the beginning of another

ellipsis: Omission of words

parallelism: The use of similar structures in two or more clauses

parenthesis: Insertion of a clause or sentence in a place where it interrupts the natural flow of the sentence

Tropes (from the Greek tropein, to turn) involve changing or modifying the general meaning of a term. It is an artful deviation from the principal or ordinary signification of a word. An example of a trope is the use of irony, which is the use of words in a way that conveys a meaning opposite to its usual meaning ("For Brutus is an honorable man; / So, are they all, honorable men").

allusion: An indirect reference to another work of literature or art

antonomasia: The substitution of a phrase for a proper name or vice versa

apostrophe: Addressing a thing, an abstraction or a person not present.

During the Renaissance, a time when scholars in every discipline had a passion for classifying all things, writers expended a great deal of energy in devising all manner of classes and sub-classes of figures of speech. Henry Peacham, for example, in his The Garden of Eloquence (1577) enumerated 184 different figures of speech.